Lactose Fermenting Milkweed Pods

Why is it that most restaurants serve pickles with their hamburgers or why is it that some people like sauerkraut on their hot dogs?   Believe it or not, we eat these things with our meat because at one time, this was the equivalent of taking medicine.  Have you even, after a big meal, been forced to take something for gas?  Well, that's what our ancestors did, but they did it with vegetables that had been lactose fermented.  When they ate heavy, hard to digest foods, such as dense meat or sausages, they just automatically "took their medicine" or ate something that had been slightly fermented. 

It is a pretty widely known fact that eating yogurt is almost a necessity while on antibiotics.  Jamie Lee Curtis talks about eating yogurt if you suffer from occasional irregularity.  This is because yogurt is a slightly fermented dairy product that puts healthful bacteria back into our digestive tract, our gut, so to speak.  See, for you to digest your food, it must first be broken down.  This is done a couple of ways.  First, your stomach has some of the strongest acid known to mankind inside of it. This not only begins to break down the food you eat into smaller pieces (easier to ferment) but it kills off many harmful bacteria that can't live in such an acidy environment. The other thing that happens is beneficial bacteria begin to ferment this broken down food to extract what you need to survive from it.  These beneficial bacteria not only can live in that acidy environment, it will create its own acid to form that environment if it can't find it ready made.  This is called lactic acid.

When we ferment foods, we begin the process our stomach does outside our own bodies.  We make the food more easily digestible before we even start digesting it.  Another plus side of this is that once a food is lactose fermented, other bacteria have a hard time getting into that food.  The lactic acid that forms in the food kills off "bad" bacteria or bacteria that can hurt us.   This is why it would be almost impossible to store cucumbers in their natural state, but ferment them or cover them in a ferment like vinegar, and they can last on the shelves for years as pickles.

Our bodies learned to eat (evolved) on fermented foods.  Long before humans invented refrigeration we were munching on half rotten foods.  Only our noses tell us the difference between a good rot (ferment) and a bad rot (methyl mercaptan).   We learned that by introducing good yeasts and good bacteria we could prevent our foods from spoiling in a bad way.  Our ancestor's bodies learned to eat this fermented food and they have passed that trait onto us. Most of us are actually healthier if we eat a little lactic acid every day and certainly after any heavy meal.

Most vegetable (in fact I can't think of a one that can't) can be "pickled" or lactose fermented.  The main ones in the U.S. we know are cucumbers and cabbage but I have a sister in Australia whole lives off of pickled beets.  We serve then at every family meal, if only so the kids can play with the bright red juice.  I pickle green beans, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, parsnips...I'm sure there are more but I can't come up with any more.  I also make different cheeses (fermenting milk) wines and beers, sour dough for bread and...mmm...pancakes (I love sour dough pancakes).  Did you know that if you smoke tobacco this is fermented and chocolate, is fermented too.  Tea?  You guess it, fermented.  The list of fermented foods is too big to list and too big to know (unless you are on a MAOI and then you BETTER know what foods are fermented).

Here's the thing, people don't often think of wild foods when they think of fermenting, which is sad, because eating fermented wild foods is just as good for you and just as tasty as what comes out of your garden.  It is also FREE FOOD that stores for a long time.  I have probably about 40 jars of pickled purslane on the shelves in the cellar.  I have a Methodist minister that comes to my Wassail every year just to eat pickled purslane.  She once teased me that if I quit making it she would quit coming.  So I make sure I make it.  I certainly don't want to lose a Methodist blessing for my apple orchard.  LOL

We had to mow an area to get a well truck back to one of our new shepherd shacks.  In that mowed area the milkweeds have just gone to pods. While I have some of pickled milkweed pods from earlier this year, I couldn't pass up fermenting just one more small batch.  So here is how you can easily lactose ferment milkweed pods.

First, you want to pick your milkweed pods when they are small.  I try to get them when they are less than 2 inches but I have pickled slightly larger ones. 

Then you need to get the latex out of them.  That white sap that gives milkweed it's name?  It's latex and it is not good for you.  Luckily it dissolves really fast in boiling water.  Don't put your milkweed into cold water and then bring it to a boil, this "sets" the latex.  Instead boil up a couple pots of water and once they are fully boiling, drop the milkweed pods into the first pot.  Boil for a minute.  Then strain out the pods, discarding the water and drop the pods into the second pot of boiling water.  Again, boil for one minute.  Strain out the pods again, discarding the water.

There, now you can treat your milkweed pods like any other veggie.

I am a garlic fiend so I use only garlic with my milkweed pods, but you can use whatever herbs and spices you like.  If you like dill pickles, using the same flavorings in this will work fine.  So I alternate layers of milkweed pods and layers of garlic cloves into a scalded jar big enough to hold them all with room to spare at the top.

Over this I put salt water. My ratio of salt to water is for every pint of water is around a tablespoon of non-iodine salt. I usually boil it up to kill off anything not wanted in the water, let it cool and then poured it over my milkweed and garlic.  Though I don't boil it every time and I've never had a problem so that may be a step you can skip.  I just usually do it to make myself feel better.  Make sure there is enough salt water to COMPLETELY cover everything in the jar (flavoring and pods).

Then, because everything floats and I want to make certain everything stays BELOW the water surface I put a filled glass that just fits into the jar.  This is my weight to keep everything down.  Anything clean, heavy, food safe, and nonreactive should work.

Then I just set it on the back of the counter and wait. 

 

The salt keeps the "bad" bacteria from getting to the milkweed, meanwhile the "good" bacteria (which can live in salt-this stuff is tough) begins to ferment the pods, just like they ferment the cabbage in a kraut barrel.  In about 10 days taste your pods.  If they are sour enough for you, you can eat them, can them (same as canning any pickle) or put them in the fridge.  If not leave it set for a little longer, tasting from time to time.

Now, if you can them, you kill off the bacteria, stopping the fermenting process.  If you put the in the fridge, you slow down the bacteria but the pods will slowly get more sour.  Or you can put them in a cellar to keep souring.  The flavor will change every time you eat a new one.  This keeps the bacteria alive and ready to work in your stomach. 

Look around at the natural foods that you eat.  If you have extra of them or if there is a mast year (a year when a certain wild edible produces more food than in a normal year), try pickling it.  That's a way of keeping that food around for a little longer and lets you eat for FREE for awhile.  As a proud tightwad, I enjoy the "free" word.  lol